Tents 101 - Your Guide to Renting a Tent for a Wedding or Party

If you are having an outdoor wedding reception, unless your location has an alternate indoor location that is up to par (that is, will fit ALL your guests), you need some kind of contingency for bad weather. Even if it doesn't rain, excessive heat can kill a party. A tent makes it possible to have a party nearly anywhere. Instead of renting out a banquet hall, you can have your party in a garden, or at a meaningful location like your grandparent's farm.
Even if you going to use the tent only if it rains, you still need to size it out and price it out ahead of time--two days before your event is not the time to worry about it.

The number 1 question anybody planning a tent wedding has is, how big a tent do I need? You can't seriously begin to price it out before you figure out your size, and the layperson just isn't going to be able to "eyeball it".

Most tent rental companies carry everything from 10'x10' on up, moving up in 10' increments. Don't be intimidated by the huge range of sizes; the great thing about having your wedding or party inside a tent instead of inside a building is that you can build the space that works for you.

This is going to take some math, but don't worry, it's easy math. You can also use a program like this one to help you out. That program even has a simple sketch program to let you arrange your tables and chairs inside the tent.

1. Take your guest count. If everybody's going to be seated at 60" Round tables (this is the most common way to seat people), you need 100 square feet per 8 guests. If you're seating them at long tables, you need 80 square feet per 8 guests. Example: 150 guests, divided by 8, comes to 18.75 round tables (if you don't get a whole number, round up because you can't sit at half a table). 19x100 = 1900 square feet.
2. Are you seating the bridal party at the traditional long head table? If so, you need room for that. Take the # of people you want sitting at that long table (including the bride and groom!), divide by 4. That's the # of 8' tables you need to form the head table. You need room behind the tables, to let people get in and out, and also room in front to get the right effect. Allow 10x10 per head table. Example: 12 person bridal party, divided by 4, is 3) 8' tables. Added 300 square feet.
3. Buffet - Typically, we allow a 10x10 area for each 8' buffet table (this also allows room for the buffet line to form). Usually your caterer will be the one to tell you how many buffet tables you need. If my make-believe party needs 4) buffet tables, that's 400 extra square feet.
4. Other items: Are you having a stage for the band? Are you having a dance floor? All of these are going to take up real estate in your tent. For stages and dance floors especially, you need more than the actual size of these items, since nobody wants to sit two feet away from the stage. If I was using a 12x12 dance floor, I'd give it at least a 16x16 area, adding 256 square feet to the tent.
Total square footage: 2856
This number is the bare minimum square footage you need. If you get a tent smaller than this, you're going to have problems.

Now you know your square footage. Now, all you have to do is match it up to the appropriate tent. Remember, you can't go below the number you came up with. If you are right on the border, always go up. Here's a list of some of the most common tent sizes:

Tent Size

Square Footage

20x20

400 sq ft

20x30

600 sq ft

20x40

800 sq ft

30x30

900 sq ft

20x50

1000 sq ft

20x60 or 30x40

1200 sq ft

30x50

1500 sq ft

20x80 or 40x40

1600 sq ft

30x60

1800 sq ft

30x70

2100 sq ft

30x80 or 40x60

2400 sq ft

40x80

3200 sq ft

60x60

3600 sq ft

40x100

4000 sq ft

60x70

4200 sq ft

40x120 or 60x80

4800 sq ft

40x140

5600 sq ft

40x160 or 80x80

6400 sq ft

Okay, so now what? I recommend getting the squarest tent your site allows for two reasons: 1. Your guests will have an easier time mingling and all will feel included during important parts of the evening like the cake cutting and 2. Wider tents are HIGHER. Which looks better, and does a better job of keeping you cool. A 40'x60' tent will be higher than a 30'x80' tent from the same manufacturer. Only use a long, skinny tent if that's all that will fit in your space.
That's why it's important to draw out what you're actually doing. Graph paper works, but this program is easy to use, free, and is a huge help.

Now, pricing on this stuff tends to be regional. I'm based in southeast USA, but if you're in Chicago or LA you're probably going to end up spending more. As they say on the internet, YMMV.

When you're shopping around, make sure you get pricing that includes delivery of the tent, set-up of the tent itself plus all the accessories, and take-down. If at all possible, try to get the tent delivered and set up a couple days ahead of time, so you have time for getting everything under it and decorating.

Tent liner: You see these a lot in bridal magazines. It's a floaty, parachute-looking lining, usually white or ivory, though you can get insane colors for insane prices. Even in your basic white, these can get pretty expensive, usually 1x-4x the cost of the tent itself. Bridal magazines try to make these sound as essential as a best man and a marriage license, but fortunately, like sterling silver flatware, this is a fancy detail 98% of people can skip. Instead of a liner, get a pole tent. See the picture? The peak is made via one single pole instead of lots of interior frames and what-not, so you don't even need a liner. And if you do get a liner, don't blow a ton of money on a custom fuchsia-colored one with your name all over it, when you can use lighting effects on a normal liner to get a similar look.

Walls: $1-3 per linear foot (the perimeter of the tent). The perimeter of our imaginary 40x80 tent is 40+40+80+80, so you'd need 240 foot of wall. Solids, clear, and cathedral are standard. Fabric walls are also nice, but you can't expect them to keep in the heat or keep you dry.
Whether you need walls depends on time of year. The dead of summer? Skip the walls--they'll just make your tent hot, and add fans instead. The winter? Get walls and heat. One of the pictures in the picture section above shows patio heaters in the tents, but don't do that--get an actual tent furnace. For not too much money, you can get one with a thermostat, just like the heat in your house, so you don't have to keep adjusting it during your event, and 90% of it sits outside the tent so it doesn't take up space. Plus you don't have to worry about somebody knocking it over.

Tent flooring: You can't just put carpet on the ground. It looks messy and creates a trip hazard. If you're just looking to keep your feet dry, portable flooring runs for about $1.5 / square foot but you need a flat piece of land to start out with, preferably sand (it was really made for beach weddings) or asphalt. If you want a hard deck, that women in heels can walk on, that can be built almost anywhere, you'll spend $2-2.50 per square foot, including carpet. $2/foot doesn't sound like a lot, but do the math. A 40x80 tent is 3200 square feet. At $2 / foot. That's $6400, for just the floor. And that is for the standard grey or black carpet. White carpet, as you can imagine, is pretty much one-use so if you want it, expect to pay dearly. Also, if your land slopes significantly, the cost will go up...significantly, since there is a lot of labor involved. Tent flooring is a nice luxury but at the end of the day, it can break your budget and most people don't need it.

Dance Floor: These are also about $2 / square foot, but since you'll probably only want a 20x20 area at most, it's a lot more affordable than flooring the whole tent.

Tent Lighting - These come in several flavors, and it's going to vary depending on which tent company you go with. One option great for evening events is stage lighting with color gels. Can lights can be mounted to the framing structure of the tent and look really cool. I've had people use Christmas lights, but word to the wise: you need A LOT. Like 10x more than you'd ever use for your house. Bear in mind that if you are providing your own lighting, the tent company probably won't put them up for you, and you'll have to get them out of there before they come to take the tent down.

The rule when hiring a party rental company, or really just when buying anything big, is "you get what you pay for." You wouldn't trust a caterer who said he could get you fillet mignon for ten bucks a head, and you shouldn't trust a tent company that's thousands of dollars less than everybody else in town. Like I said earlier tent prices are regional. If a vendor is significantly cheaper than everybody else in your area, there's a reason. They're either brand new to the industry and don't know how to price themselves (do you really want to be this guy's test case?) or you're comparing a wedding-quality tent to a ten-year-old state-fair-quality tent.

A good vendor should, at the very least:
1. Be responsive. Beware any vendor who doesn't answer the phone if you call during business hours (or at least, return a message promptly). What if something goes wrong during your event? You don't want to rely on somebody who can't or won't be available.
2. Give you a written quote. Before booking or paying anything, ask for a written quote for everything you want to get from that vendor, including set up, breakdown, delivery, deposits, taxes, etc. If they can't or won't provide you with a free quote, move on.
3. Some companies want to come out to your house and see where the tent is going in advance, some don't really do that. I work at the latter-type of company. IDK, I don't think it's necessary to see the site first unless there's something weird about it, but I might be biased.
4. Have a clear cancellation / change order policy. What happens if you decide, a month before your event, that you don't want a tent anymore? What if you have to reschedule? What if your guest list shrinks, or doubles? Things happen. Find out the cancellation policy. Get it in writing.

Another thing: Most "tent companies" also do tables and chairs, and some can even do your dance floor, stage, tablecloths, dishes, centerpieces...you get the idea. I recommend getting everything from the same place if at all possible. For one, you'll only have one delivery charge. Plus you won't have to worry about the tablecloth people getting there before the table people, or the stage not fitting under the tent, etc. Unless you have a really compelling reason, you'll end up saving money and frustration by using as few vendors as possible.

Where do you find a company? Many times your caterer can hook you up, and I'd go that route first, since it's to their advantage to recommend somebody good. Failing that, a google search for "tent company + your area" should give you a good start, but also be sure to ask people you know, and check out Yelp and Google Reviews for an idea of who's good and who sucks in your area.